France’s far right may work with far left to torpedo Macron’s detested pension reform

Speaking on BFMTV, lawmaker and spokesperson for the far-right National Rally Laurent Jacobelli said his party would vote for the bill, because “it’s in [National Rally’s] program.”

France Unbowed’s Mathilde Panot said she was confident the bill would pass. “There was already a majority in the previous parliament to beat retirement at 64, I think there will be an even greater majority to beat it today,” she said on France Inter.

After weeks of protests in the street and acrimonious debates in the National Assembly, Macron’s government last year passed the law by invoking a controversial constitutional maneuver that bypassed a vote in parliament, plunging the country into a political crisis.

Macron argued that the pensions reform was necessary, despite the opposition, in order to balance France’s books in the long term in the face of an aging population. France is struggling with high levels of public debt, which triggered a downgrade from S&P in May this year. Moody’s has warned it could downgrade France if the pensions reform is overturned.

While both parties campaigned in this summer’s snap election on promises to undo the pensions reform, the far left and far right despise each other and rarely work together, even if failing to do so results in be to hands victory to the centrist Macron.

However, parties hostile to Macron’s pensions reform are much stronger in the National Assembly, raising the prospect that the bill repealing the reform could be passed.

The National Rally and its allies have 142 MPs in parliament, the left-wing alliance, which includes the far left, has 188 MPs — together they have more than half the National Assembly. Repealing the pensions reform was one of the campaign promises of the left-wing New Popular Front, and some of the far left’s coalition partners have already come out in support of its parliamentary initiative.

There are many obstacles ahead, however, for Macron’s adversaries. The National Assembly is currently in recess and the pensions repeal bill will not be debated for several months. The Senate, which is dominated by the center-right, is also unlikely to pass a bill overturning the pensions reform.